“Like, dude, I get it. I really do.” Arguable. “You’re kind of a mess. But, like... you don’t have to do it full time, you know? Except you’d probably feel all the guilt if Angel got hurt while you weren’t there, and then that means you have to be there all the time, so you burn out, and... woof. All this hero stuff is stupid high stakes, which, uh, probably isn’t good for the Big D?”
She makes an undulating shoulder motion of vagueness.
“Have you tried, like... talking to people who aren’t me about it? Like, uh, the superfriends? They probably know a little bit more about...”
She stops and thinks about her fans. Angel. Bound Eagle. Ferraphim.
“Well, uh. Shit. Forget I said that. How about someone like... like a therapist, maybe? I can use some of my connections with the Union to get you in touch with someone who specializes in supers.”
Locker pulls his scarf up a bit, so that the way it falls covers his mouth. A little habit he has for when he's trying not to laugh at someone. "You know, talking to you is actually pretty reassuring in its own right. I mean, if a fuckup like you can become a superstar, it can't be that bad, right?"
He ran his fingers through his already jagged hair. Looked up at the moon. "It's not the danger that gets me. It's not the hard work. I haven't been sitting in my apartment watching anime, it's pretty much all been danger room training -" you believe it. He wears deliberately shapeless clothing making him look like an indistinct blob of fabric, but you could floss a t-rex with the tendons in his hands. "- it's the, you know, the
pressure. I don't know how you take it. Having it be a news story if I can't go outside that day. Having it be smashed across social media if I fuck up. The fan mail, the hate mail, the weird marriage requests, that one guy who wants to see pictures of my feet. When it's a life or death fight against a martian robot army I can
chill, but when there's a legion of psychos who won't give me space to just turn off for the day..."
He smiles at you. "Got no idea how you handle it. How you energize from it. I wish I had it."
Errant leans forward. She presses her face into her hand: two fingers and her thumb across her forehead while the other two curve down past her nose. Her hair tumbles delicately across her face. None of it hides the grin splitting her from ear to ear. Her entire body is spasming with the effort of not collapsing in a fit of laughter.
"Yeah," she says after what feels like three eternities, "Girls are pretty great."
First official note for the record: it is very definitely the girl that Errant is responding to, and not the cybernetics. She sits up in her chair again and sweeps her hair back up and over her shoulders. Professional. Be professional. She's the adult in the room.
"Would you like to start over? My name's Euna, what do you like to be called? Come on, second first impressions, let's go!"
She takes a moment. Eyes shut. Blush red. Doing her best to unthink the past and embrace her new opportunity. She opens her mouth, takes a deep breath.
She's ready this time.
"Well my screen name is Sinner and -" oh nope,
nope, that didn't work either. "- I mean just Sin is fine -" you just fell down this staircase "- but Cinder is, you know, my actual name so it makes sense to call me that -" things are happening in slow motion this time around and somehow that feels worse, "- d-do you have any easier questions?"
"Yes," he eventually decides. "And then again, no. Limitations are good, but ideally both limiter and limitee agree on a resonable set of restrictions. This requires both to acknowledge and respect one another.
"But when one side--right or wrong--starts to perceive the other as being, in essence, less than human, the exchange starts to break down. Back then, I imposed limitations on Prometheus without even consulting him. He was a friend, yes, but a friend that I viewed as being somehow less than I. I loaded him up with ideas and ambitions and limitations that were all mine, all my doing, because I was smarter and because I could, and apparently that was all I needed to see it as the right thing to do.
"And then I released him out into the world, and he was smarter than I was, and suddenly I was surprised that he learned that being stronger than someone else means you don't need to care about them."
The admission stings, especially under those piercing eyes, and he turns away under their weight. "And... and now, I might be doing it again, and don't know how not to do it."
Your comlog lights up in your eye, indicating that Bode has just opened a internet connection to VRTropes. He's silent and still as he falls down a link hole as he cross-references something that he only understands vaguely about human culture. There are multiple upload notifications as he wades into the comments field in a futile attempt to communicate to two sides that they actually agree with each other.
Then he comes back from his ethereal jaunt with the knowledge he sought.
"What you have described just now seemed like it was contradictory," said Bode. "You used phrases both aligned with my understanding of peer relationships, and of parent-child relationship. In a peer relationship control is undesirable" pause, additional search, "unless everyone is into that." pause "In a parental relationship control is mandatory. A parent
must restrict a child's activities and communicate their worldview and morality to the child. If Prometheus is your peer, then the logic of peer relationships indicate that he is a bad person and you should 'sever'. If Prometheus is your child then the logic of parental relationships indicate that you should kindly but firmly discipline. I am unsure which is applicable to your situation."
"Great driving! I tried that once and hooooooo boy, that was tougher than it looked. I didn't cause too much cosmetic damage though!" She looks over towards the missile and blinks a few times. "Hey, you have enough radar to avoid that missile right?" She pauses for a moment, then clarifies. "It doesn't seem to be aimed at you, you just need to not steer into it!"
"Yeah, I got that, space hallucination goddess lady!" shouted the pilot into her helmet. You can see the radio waves as they beam out back down towards the surface.
"Uh, Juxane, the fuck you saying?" came the transmission from the surface, demonstrating similarly lax radio discipline. "You high up there? You flying my baby fuckin high?"
"It's not like that, this chick is - UNPARALLELED GREETINGS#$$$," the radio waves are blocked out by the ocean of static and scrapcode emanating from the Martian missile. As you watch the interplanetary rocket changes course - turning from its predictable and suicidal course into the shield dome of AEGIS to fly over in this direction. "ENLARGE YOUR PENIS FOR LESS IMPORTANT PLEASE READ, destination reached conducting u-turn, warhead armed, bearing 402 115 494, RGB 255/230/50, terminus rockets deployed, HELLO FROM MAR$,"
It's that stream of broken signal, a mad patchwork of intelligence reaching out to you with greetings, spam, and garbled technical data as it starts to carry its warhead towards you at full speed.
